Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian is still on track to increase his stake in Ford Motor Co. to 5.5 percent, a new report finds. Kerkorian’s investment company, Tracinda Corp., was looking to purchase 20 million addition Ford shares at $8.50 a pop, but with the stock closing at $6.12 per share, the company drew offers for more than 1 billion shares.
Despite the additional offers, Tracinda still plans to purchase 20 million shares.
However, the fact that so many shareholders are willing to jump ship is not good news for the Blue Oval. “Obviously the premium is a motivation, but the motivation is that you don’t see the stock going higher than what the tender offer was,” Argus Research analyst Kevin Tynan told Automotive News. “If shareholders believed that $8.50 was just the starting point and it would go higher from there, you would not see that kind of over-subscription to the offer.”
Ford ’s stock has been on a steady free-fall ever since the Michigan-based automaker announced that it would not reach its turnaround goal in 2009.
